Needing to get a little time away, and really wanting to go somewhere new, we somehow hatched the scheme of hiring a plane to fly us to Panama for a few days to celebrate Christmas. After a few minor setbacks in departure, we flew down in what turned out to be much worse weather than we had expected, to Panama City. We, by the way, was Steve and Jocelyn as well as our friends Ian and Lorelle. Chris, the pilot, is also a friend and he spent some of the time with us as well. (link to pictures)
Day one was largely a travel day, but we had a delicious lunch on an island connected to the city via a causeway- once upon a time the area was off-limits to Panamanians and a playground for the US military folk who where overseeing the Canal. Now it is supposed to be the next hot developing area in Panama City, but truth be told, there is still a ways to go. There were several very expensive looking yachts moored up next to the very reasonably priced restaurant where we enjoyed delicious food. We hoped to be able to talk our way aboard a boat headed through the canal, but after two half-hearted tries and doing some math regarding the amount of time that the canal transit would consume, we gave that idea up in favor of doing other things.
Instead of repeating our $26 hotel taxi mistake, we took an $8 local cab back to the hotel, then headed off to go shopping.
The boys tired of the shopping spree early and returned to the hotel to clean up and relax some before all of us went out to a late dinner at a fantastic little restaurant called Las Bovedas. The cab ride there was $4.00 The restaurant has been built inside what used to be an armory for the fort protecting the entrance to the canal. The dining room was a long, fairly high, arched tunnel with hundreds-year old brickwork. Snazzy. Unfortunately, their air conditioning system was appropriate for dozens of diners but on the night before Christmas eve at 9pm there were really only three or four tables present. It was chilly. We finally moved outside to enjoy the near-perfect late night air and an even-nearer-to-perfection espresso and dessert, while looking through the little town square at the dilapidated French embassy before catching a $3.25 cab to the hotel.
The next day the boys headed back into the Casco Viejo (old part of the city) to look around while the girls shopped some more at the modern malls in the modern part of the city. It is hard to describe, but in essence, Panama City seems to be two or three cities that all abut one another. The old area (lots of pictures) has been around for a long time. It fell into a general state of disrepair over the years, but recent investment and government incentives have revitalized apparently random parts of it to be quite charming. The new part of the city houses high-rise condo, hotel, and office buildings. Many of the buildings are over 30 stories, but a surprising number are also less than 1/2 a city-block. It gives a futuristic look to the area despite the fact that at ground level you still see plenty of hints that you are in Central America with trash heaped in empty lots and the occasional strong whiff of raw sewage. It did rain hard while we were there, and hadn't rained recently, so it is certainly possible that the smells aren't usually as strong.
The third city would be the slummy areas of high-density housing that are clearly low-rent and/or government subsidized. Pretty depressing in the moments we passed through them.
But I digress.
So Ian and Steve cabbed it back to the Casco Viejo ($1.25) to poke around a little while the girls shopped. Because we were starving, we stopped off at a great little cafe on a shady square in front of a fully refurbished church and the national theater, looking for a bit of breakfast. Being Christmas Eve, the choices for food were limited. While the cafe in question doesn't actually serve breakfast, the bartender (owner?) was kind enough to make us a couple of sandwiches, which came with surprisingly delicious orange juice. We had a second glass. Not surprisingly, considering that we each make our living off of real estate, our conversation turned to real estate. Coincidentally, we happened to see what was obviously an agent drop off some clients so we approached her and invited her to enjoy a third (for us) glass of OJ and tell us a little bit about the market. A little conversation led to a brief tour, which we had to cut short to meet up with our wives.
After we all caught up on our mornings' activities, the four of us walked around some more in the Casco Viejo, enjoying the views and the vibrancy of the people living there. Around three or four we piled into a taxi and headed back to our hotel ($2.75 cab fare). One of the things we found amusing was just how little consistency there was in cab fare, but it seemed to get cheaper each time we rode, so we weren't complaining!
Christmas Eve dinner found us enjoying a sort of Eastern-fusion cuisine (the food was amazing) at Habibis. On the menu was the option of enjoying a hooka-full of various flavored tobaccos. We didn't try it, but got a kick out of watching other diners puffing on the fancily decorated pipes sitting beside their tables. By sheer happenstance we bumped into Chris and he joined us for the latter part of our meal.
In general, the food in Panama City was treating us great, and the girls had a blast shopping while the boys did some real estate window-shopping, but we all figured that Christmas Day in the city was likely to be pretty dead.
One of the great advantages of chartering your own plane and pilot is that you can change travel plans almost literally at the last minute. We all decided to head out to Bocas Del Toro island on the caribbean side of the country (Panama City is on the Pacific) and so early on Christmas morning we headed to the airport (the taxi there cost less than $4, the ride to the hotel from the airport had charged us $12!) and loaded into the plane to fly over to the island. After pushing the plane off the runway and onto the parking lawn (really!) we hunted down a place to sleep. No mean feat on Christmas day in a popular tourist destination! We finally settled on a decent, albeit overpriced, place called Hotelito Del Mar, where we could only get one room for the four of us (Chris thought he had something else lined up, but as it turned out he didn't and had to sleep in the plane).
After settling into the hotel we started looking to rent a small boat to take us around sightseeing- boats are about the only good way to go anywhere there as there are dozens of little islands scattered about with various cool features. There was a bit of a misunderstanding as some of us had talked with a boat captain in the street while others spoke with the hotelier about getting a boat. The end result was the hotelier turned into a real pain the butt and was very put out by the fact that we had negotiated a MUCH better deal with the captain we found. As it turned out, not only had we gotten a better deal for a private boat for the five of us, but the hotelier had gone ahead and thrown in two additional guests without even mentioning it to us. Now, we are friendly people and would certainly have been willing to go along with the idea had we been asked... but asking us to pay MORE to share a boat with strangers vs. paying LESS to have a private boat at our disposal? Silly.
With no grace at all the hotelier finally backed down and we headed off on our way to enjoy a lovely afternoon full of snorkeling, napping on a sugar-sanded beach and eating fantastic fried fish. Despite the fact that a lot of beer was involved with all of that, we all felt great and headed right out at sunset when we motored back to the hotel. Somewhere along the way someone finally read the beer can or bottle and realized that in fact the beer we had been drinking was about 3% alchohol.
We made up for that fact with some delicious mixed rum drinks at one hotel/bar on the water before heading off for an entirely mediocre but very pleasant dinner at another place. Despite being exhausted, Chris convinced us to head over to a neat place where they've built a bar/club around a sunken ship, which is illuminated at night. Fun spot!
The morning came early as Steve and Ian had hired the boat to go back out and just poke around and watch the sunrise. The captain (an 18 year old kid) didn't show up as agreed, so we just wandered the morning streets, shot a few photographs, and eventually caught up with the girls for a delicious breakfast of crepes.
The flight home was uneventful, the drive back from San Jose was long and complicated by a major detour around a serious accident, but we made it safe and sound (thanks for driving, Ian!) around sunset in Tamarindo. All in all, a fantastic vacation.

Labels: photo, travel